Page:National Life and Character.djvu/276

It would seem, accordingly, that we must start upon any examination into the causes that modify character with the postulate that several and perhaps even many races are inherently energetic; and though they may be depressed for a time by foreign conquest, or by poverty, or by bad government, as the modern Italians were for centuries, it is never safe to predict that they have lost the power to rise again. Another important consideration is, that some institutions which seem to crush originality in one direction, may be found to favour the formation of a strong character in another. The influence of every Church, Christian or otherwise, is to discourage examination of those truths which it teaches as fundamental. It allows the intellect of its followers to be apologetic, explanatory, and, it may be, even complementary, but forbids it at all hazards to be critical. Beyond this, every Church is tempted to compromise with human frailty so long as its own supremacy is recognised. It often, almost habitually, prefers the immoral man, who gives it no trouble, to the moral man, who is always fingering his conscience and doubting how far the Church system is adequate. To a considerable extent, accordingly, the Churches proscribe independence of speculation, and weaken the springs of character by relaxing the moral fibre. On the other hand, every Church has a rule of life which is more ascetic and severe than men in general would naturally adopt, and its demands in this way are commonly in proportion with its shortcomings in other directions. The Catholic Church, for instance, which puts Dante and Darwin into the Index Expurgatorius, and which is very gentle to sins of the flesh when it speaks through Jesuit fathers in the confessional, does yet exact severe sacrifices from its members: forbids them to attend the